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BACK TO THE LAND
By
FCIV'S
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The Ultimate Garden: Part II of
“I am not Gardening …”
Actually this would be part III, or part IV of the recent series that includes thoughts on the cattle panels. Since I am writing in a diary format and rambling a bit for my age you will have to bear with me on my thoughts.
We have addressed that everyone’s garden plot is different. So I use the example of a flat square plot of a quarter acre to construct the current concept of a food production “machine.” Conventional row and weed gardens require about a quarter acre, i.e.: 10,000 square feet of area to prove up enough supplemental food for a family to live on for a year. This does not include grain and maize plots.
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Conventional row and weed gardens do produce well unless you toil in the mid day sun, apply lots of chemical aids, and till the soil with plow, disc, harrow, rotary tiller and hoe. All this work is too much for me, and in my observations women are the gardens beasts of burden until they reach about 60, then the man takes an interest as he is retired with less income thereby motivated to still demonstrate his breadwinning powers. Soon afterward the garden shrinks and shrinks, as the old folks just cannot labor anymore.
My gardening interests go back over half a century. Early years left the horse in the pasture and I embraced tractors, agriculture courses in school and better living through chemistry. I was another product of the system. However, I was fortunate to serve Uncle Sam and travel the world wherein I observed more simple pursuits in food production that had been repeated for thousands of years-successfully I might add.
When I retired in 1980 I chose to become a back2theland person and put into my lifestyle the sum of my gardening observations. After much experimentation with this plot of Heaven I live on I am ready to build my Ultimate vegetable and herb gardens with patience and planning so that I may have the rest of my days in timely improvements to share with you.
We, as “back2theland” people strive for self-sufficiency, health, and a managed lifestyle. Gardening is only part of the food production plan, as we must also consider greenhouse, outdoor kitchen processing, small animal management for food, fertilizer and the elusive companionship that only a farm setting brings to you. The entire concept of creating your Eden into a self-supporting eco system requires careful planning and initial work. To save you years of fruitless labors I offer my experiences, observations and mistakes that culminate into a proven workable solution that may be adopted in whole, or in part by those so inclined to follow the back2theland drum beat.
Over the years I have dug out three flat level plots-terraces if you will-on a hillside behind my 170 year old barn to produce vegetables, fruit, and herbs. On the other end of these plots, the north end, I have my chicken house. Behind the chicken house in the pine trees are my rabbits. Below the rabbits is a small pond that I use to pump up water to the garden. When we had children it was a great swimming pond although of late it has become a place of great wild beauty to sit and repose, contemplating the hand of nature while withdrawn from the cares of the world.
Milch goats still abound and will again go back into service when my new pasture fences are in place. They remain a special love in my life along with my bees bringing to light the biblical adage of milk and honey.
Are you still with me? Let us get started on the Ultimate Garden.
I have decided, for me, I want a 10’ wide, 70’ long raised box bed garden with an underground watering system with a cattle panel quanset hoop style enclosed covering on a raised window siding giving me a center height of about 12’. The high wall sides will allow for good ventilation.
A young family man in Denver had e-mailed me on his lack of major draught water problems, space and poor soil to grow soil. I suggested to dig out two feet deep his bed size, put a half foot of gravel in, run his four inch diameter slotted plastic drain pipes down for the length, place gravel on top for another six inches, then build up the walls and fill with quality top soil. I never heard from him again. I assume the initial work was horrific once he drew out the plan, being overwhelmed with tons of useless desert soil, yet if he wanted a real production garden in a desert like state with only water runoff from the roof to a storage tank (The city is rationing water), moist under bed growing conditions to reduce weeds and water loss through evaporation this was a way to go in suburbia with intensive planting techniques.
For a existing garden bed where the soil is already rich with compost and natures life’s process you could just till it as deep as you can, rake it smooth, box in your bed forms of railroad ties, blocks or garden landscape logs from Wal-Mart in the shape your desire to meet your garden dreams. Adjust for a general Ph level of 6.8 for most vegetable plants, unless you have a monoculture that demands more acidity or alkalinity specifics.
However, let us consider the summer droughts, and God forbid the life-threatening decade of draught we had in Virginia only two garden seasons ago. Professional weather guessers and the science community prophesizes that we are going to be faced in the long run with colder winters and drier summers. This is global warming. I support the concept of under bed watering to save water and grow food.
My experience on underbed watering goes back over 40 years from when I was prospecting in Arizona. I noted then in my diaries that different configurations of stones, size, and composition retained moisture underneath. This was often a harbor for small creatures and tiny roots. A six to eight inch diameter stone, perhaps an inch thick, offered water retention. Pummice was the most apparent absorbent, from volcanic material I found near Mt. Lassen in California. Today it is sold under the name of vermiculite in garden centers in a crushed form as a water retention aid in potted plants. I suspect if a person shopped around you could find it in large qualities at an inexpensive rate. But alas, most of us will be utilizing gravel as a water retention aid as well as a protection from the clogging of slotted irrigation plastic pipes from loose dirt. Still it would be nice to lay in flat porus stones at the bottom of the bed, perhaps overlapping.
Before we lay in the gravel we can also consider for the small bed builder, or those with lofty food production fantasies the use of a back hoe to ideally dig down from the soil level two feet, removing all the soil to one side, good soil, or not so good a soil. This will make a trench like pit with rectangular sides. Then we go into this pit and sub soil dig it to loosen the soil another foot. At this point you are groaning however a backhoe operator can dig out my fantasy in an hour and at a cost of $35.00; such are the rates in my area. The backhoe can also scrap and dig up the lower lifeless soil in the pit.
The next task is the Garden Secret Number One. If you can access enough rabbit, chicken, goat manures etc, lay in a thick layer right on top of the tilled up pit bed. More compost is good too with amendments such as kelp and manganese (deficient in this area for cabbage type plants). I would also place a thin layer on Epsom salts on top as it provides magnesium for nitrogen uptake as well as necessary sulfur. Do not forget a thin sprinkle of Dolomite Limestone for a proper balance of calcium. Biodynamic gardeners will add herbal amendments probably depending upon what they want to grow. As an example I have found that tomato growing is enhanced by composting drying asparagus stalks and ferns collected in the first frost, mixed with tomato plants, African Marigolds and comfrey is a wonderful addition with locust tree bark. The absolute best addition you can use in the bottom of the bed, as well as throughout the bed, is fall leaves. I would estimate at least four to six pickup loads of bagged leaves from the neighborhood on collection day for my bed size. More is even better. Lay the leaves in the pit and till them in. If you have a shredder- shred them first. The more organic material you can get into the sub soil the better, after all this will be a forever garden and unlikely you will ever dig it up again. Now till all this into the poor sub strata you have loosened up. Check for your Ph vale of 6.8 and adjust if necessary. The earthworms will multiply and pull down the nutrients even deeper adding their own beneficial castings.
The reason we are fertilizing so deep is that roots go deep, much deeper than you realize. You are now ready for the first layer of gravel-maybe flat stones. Lay in the gravel at least four to six inches deep. I will probably have the back hoe man scrap up creek gravel with his big front bucket and dump it for me in the pit while I am spreading it. Next, I will lay in the slotted leach field drainpipes mentioned above. I plan on four pipes about two feet apart for the seventy-foot length of the bed. At each end the pipes will have a snap in elbow and raise up vertically two feet above the soil level-figuring an extra 4 feet per pipe at each end. That’s a total pipe purchase of 312 feet for about $120.00.maybe less if I shop a bit. Once everything is in place I will add more sand and gravel to a total depth of six inches or at least an amount to hold in place the wriggly plastic flexible pipe. I will need to purchase end caps for the pipes for another $10.00. This will keep the dirt, rodents and kittens out of the pipes.
Now the backhoe operator will fill in the loose rich garden soil on top of the underground watering system. The loose soil will be mounded higher that the soil line, but will settle. Once the area-enclosed box is constructed you can level out the soil with a rake. If your soil line is too far below the boxed in walls do not despair. In time you will be adding more composts, and our earthworms beneficial efforts will be puffing up the soil. If your topsoil is still poor you can purchase composts from www.7springsfarm.com, a local address, or perhaps from organic commercial growers in your area. I do not recommend horse manures unless buried in the bottom of the pit since the horse has but one stomach and does not digest weed seeds like goats, rabbits, chickens and cows. There is no sense in adding weed seeds at this point to your top medium unless cooked at above 195 degrees to effectively kill them. Home composting will probably not kill all the weed seeds for you.
Purchasing screened pea size gravel costs, at the time of this writing, about five dollars a ton and six dollars a ton for delivery-figure ten dollars per ton total delivered. Most trucks carry upwards of ten tons so plan on a hundred dollars. Dump it where it is convenient to shovel in a wheelbarrow to dump in the garden bed and level it out. If you plan on the backhoes man to move it, ensure it is not in the way of moving dirt- loose dirt occupies more space than settled dirt.
I do not plan on building up the sides of the pit from two feet deep with Rail Road Ties. Once the pit is full, the backhoe man paid, then I can wrap a chain around the tie and drag it into place with the self propelled tiller or small garden tractor. Riding lawnmowers will pull a tie also. This may suggest to you that actual ten foot pit width could be a bit smaller since 18 “ will be taken up by the ties; ties generally being 9”across. Let us say then the inside pit width, for my plan, will be 8’ 6” wide and 70’ long. With the ties in place it will be 10’wide by 70’
If you have no mechanical device-have the backhoe man position them for you. Be sure to have a 3/4 HP electric drill with a 3/8th inch 12” drill bit to drill holes to spike the ties together once you start the second layer with a 6 lb. Short handle hammer.
After thoughts on this brings to mind the concern for toxic residue from the ties. If concerned you can place insulated bead board between the ties and the soil, or use any number of barriers. I had been thinking of my northern Canadian neighbors and old friends in Alaska where the permafrost does not permit digging. By raising the bed up and up, even to waist height, this allows early bed warming for earlier plantings. In those locals, cedar logs make an excellent base. I would continue with the underground watering concept though as there is a quicker dry out factor with raised beds.
I would call this Phase I of my garden renovation. Once the base is completed then I can start, at a later date, on the top enclosure. For now, this is my plan and when my tax refund comes in next spring I will get started and take pictures for my readers and modify this article accordingly.
There is a great deal to do in the meantime, fall leaves from Christiansburg, making composts, and bagging rabbit and chicken manures. This part is labor, Funding next spring will allow me to have the ties delivered as I am getting to old to dig them out in Radford anymore. I mention this for your benefit that garden plans, are plans to be husbanded, reveled in, enjoyed, and a plan for the future which is good for brain growth. People need to take their time and enjoy the task instead of beating themselves into the ground for the next decade, or more with old-fashioned concepts.
Oh yes, I almost forgot-the weed free bed. I will save that for next garden season, in the mean time keep weeding, and think on the Ultimate Garden Bed concept. Write me.
God Bless,
Old Timer
Back2theland@swva.net
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